MM05 thoughts.

[gator 1]

I had 694 miles one way with a 24 foot loaded down trailer. I think Dutch was a little further and he drove also....Gator

[gator 1]

One of my ideas for next year is to have a wall map posted and when you sign in. You will be given a colored stick pin to place where your from. this will serve two fold. Maybe it will start a local meet if you find a large group in your area. The reason for the different colors are the following example..

Dirving members get red pins and flying members get blue pins. Heres the best part. Member x who flew to mm wants to but a stump, some hammers and a bag but has no room on the plane. They find the person whos the closest to them who drove (blue pins ) and make arangements for them to bring it back. Now person x goes to the shop of the person who brought back there items and next thing you know a small local meet gets started.

It could happen and if not they at least got there stuff brought back.

This would also be nice to maybe help develop local meets by volume of attendees per area. The people of ablong would also be able to see where were from across the world.

Maybe the people who could not come but would like to help get things off the ground could send a 5 or 10 dollar donation to the meet and get a black pin placed in there home town. This way they could be a part of the growth when they could not attend. Hospitals and firehouses do this all the time as a fundraiser to help cover improvements.

My father always told me the best thing to invest in is yourself. This would be a great start.

Let the board know how you feel about this good or bad. We have a year till MM06 but lets get the ball rolling now. The sooner we start the less last minute work to be done by the locals...Gator


PS...I think randy gets the long distance award..LOL

[Avalonjr]

I like your ideas Gator. Being somewhat geographically retarded, I was wishing I had a map to look at to "locate" some of the hometowns. There were a lot of foreign attendies from California and Washington. I spent some time there, long ago, and was wishing I could dial it in with a map.

Since it is an international meet, we'll have to have some world maps on hand. I'm betting that we'll have the EU represented next year.

I also like the idea about it promoting local meets. I'd like to pull one together for the Chicago area.

[anders nørgaard]

Great idea Gator!

Here's my pin.... except it should have been blue.... unless someone builds a bridge across the pond before October next year

[gator 1]

Theres still a lot of work to be done in upgrades at the fairgrounds. More light, heat,power upgrades, speaker systems and they all cost money. Some of the entry fee went to upgrades this year and as the money comes in work can begin for next year.

If half of the registered members would send 5 dollars as a fairgrounds improvement fee ( at there own option ) that would be $20,750 dollars for improvements. So the ones that cant attend MM can feel like they helped. Whenever a fire company in my area wants to build something they sell bricks to the people in different collors.

Red brick = 100 donation
silver brick = 500 donation
gold brick = 1000 donation

You see my point. maybe we can do this with this group if the board oks this.
This is just an idea and i am open to others, How can we make the mm beter.


Well i pitched my idea how about yours, lets throw so many ideas at the board of directors it will give them a reason to get together and have a summit meeting...LOL LOL

Gator

[Wray Schelin]

Originally Posted by gator 1

Theres still a lot of work to be done in upgrades at the fairgrounds. More light, heat,power upgrades, speaker systems and they all cost money. Some of the entry fee went to upgrades this year and as the money comes in work can begin for next year.

If half of the registered members would send 5 dollars as a fairgrounds improvement fee ( at there own option ) that would be $20,750 dollars for improvements. So the ones that cant attend MM can feel like they helped. Whenever a fire company in my area wants to build something they sell bricks to the people in different collors.

Red brick = 100 donation
silver brick = 500 donation
gold brick = 1000 donation

You see my point. maybe we can do this with this group if the board oks this.
This is just an idea and i am open to others, How can we make the mm beter.


Well i pitched my idea how about yours, lets throw so many ideas at the board of directors it will give them a reason to get together and have a summit meeting...LOL LOL

Gator

Hi Gator,

Thanks for doing the great job that you do to help build the MetalMeet community. I know it takes a lot of time.

I have cut down my participation level of late because I don't have the time.... Right now I need to concentrate on making a living, my 3000 plus posts adds up to a lot of unpaid time. :o

My question about the fairgrounds is what do you think the attendance capacity is? I figure with all of the positive feedback about MM05 we should have close to three hundred members showing up for MM06.

I guess we need to start a want list and a budget.

Donations from major suppliers should be considered.

How did the welding representitive work out ? Were they there the whole time?

[Kerry Pinkerton]

I'd think 300 attendees would be easy. While there were lots of folks around, there was still a lot of 'empty' space. Plus, there are a lot of 'unused' covered spaces.

If we are going to go over 200 or so, I think we'd need to plan for some lighting and power upgrades in other buildings. If we stay around 150-175 we can probably make do with what is already in the upgrade list.

Which leads to pre-registrations. I believe we have to get a better handle on who is going to come LONG before next October. Otherwise we simply won't be able to get things done in time. It's not fair to the locals to expect them to drop their lives and bust butt for 4 weeks because of last minute registrations needing more space. With some prior notice, we can schedule 'work parties' who could come in for a weekend to do upgrades, etc.

I know the board has some incentive for pre-registration in the works but I believe that will be key. Having said all this, last minute folks will always be a part of it simply because stuff happens and some folks just won't know until the last minute.

[Kerry Pinkerton]

Originally Posted by gator 1

I had 694 miles one way with a 24 foot loaded down trailer. I think Dutch was a little further and he drove also....Gator

I only came about 300 but I bet I hauled more weight than anyone else!

[gator 1]

I think theres room for at least 300. Now that we have 1 meet under our belt and found the bugs we can make better use of our space.

I read back through the mm3 equipment list and that was a great idea. You had a list of equipment from people and could layout where it was going. corprate sponsers would be an asset.

The welding supply guy got there on thursday i belive and left sunday. He did not say anything to me but he may have been upset as i bought 3 miller welders for everyone to use and he had all lincoln equipment. Due to power restrictions we were set up side by side. I also think he bought his equipment for demos and not all day work. This is just my opinion.

We may want to look at a few more buildings so we can set venders up under roof and in a less noisy area. The people who camp in tents can also be moved under roof.

The grounds has the room to expand to 5 or 6 hundred if the buildings are free. The arguement will be the upgrades to these buildings but if we have 5 or 6 hundred registered then funds should not be a problem.

The big issue i see now is we need to start making improvements to what we used this year as soon as possiable so we dont get rushed last moment.

This would also be good public relations with the town as they could use the upgrades this comming year instead of waiting till next year. Might make a good negoationg point.

Pm me with a number and we can discuss this further if you like. Glad i was there to help....Gator

[Archie]

<The grounds has the room to expand to 5 or 6 hundred if the buildings are free. The arguement will be the upgrades to these buildings but if we have 5 or 6 hundred registered then funds should not be a problem.> (not sure how this quote thing works)

I think we will be hard pressed to get 5 to 6 hundred next year. I was a little disapointed with the number that showed up this year.

The only real upgrade that I thought we needed was the lighting. Why cant we start a personal donation so that anyone who wants to donate money can do so and have that money used for uprades or tools(I mentioned to Randy that maybe we should buy some wheels from Kerry at major discounts
so that we dont have to keep beating on his)

Just some of my thoughts.

Archie